Purple Party

We decided we wanted to have a birthday party for Francesca, not b/c she wanted one or would remember it, but more for us. I know this and understand that a child's party is more for the parents until they are probably 4, but I really wanted to celebrate Francesca with all of our friends here in Winston Salem that have helped us get through the past 2 years. I wanted everyone that had been a part of her life here in WS to come and celebrate with us.
So when it was time to decide a theme, b/c every kid's party needs a theme, I thought of the 2 things in the world that she loves: Elmo and the color Purple. Debating between the two themes was very simple. We didn't want her to know that there is a plethora of Elmo things out there in the world, so we picked purple. I decided to have everyone wear something purple and I would try and make as many purple foods as possible.
I asked our friend Gina to make a cake and I searched for some pictures to help give her an idea on what I wanted it to look like. And b/c of Francesca's egg allergy wanted it to be 2 layers, one for her (egg free) and the other for everyone else. So with that in mind Gina made an amazing cake for us and I started coming up with other purple foods we could serve. My plan was to have soups, b/c cold weather was starting to set in up here and I knew I could make them ahead of time and just heat them up the day of. Now that I have 2 kids to chase after I have begun to think about things like this when hosting.
So our menu was: Purple potato soup, Coconut Pumpkin Curry Soup, & White Chicken Chili. I made purple applesauce and had purple yogurt for the kids as well as a cheese platter and other party finger foods.
Never could I have imagined what a great time we would have. Francesca, after she woke up had a great time.

Then the time came for her to blow out her candle. We brought the cake into the living room and sang Happy Birthday. We've been working on Happy Birthday with Francesca and she had been singing it and loved singing it. She also had blown out a candle here and there after I would light them around the house. So I didn't work on blowing out the candle............Big Mistake. We should have practiced that. After 5 mins or more of everyone watching her watch her cake and Dom and I coaching from the side lines I finally blew it out.
She had never really liked cake but she loved that her's had dots on in. She did take a couple of bites of the cake, but really just liked eating the dots off of it.
The best part about it was that she continued to talk about her party for weeks. She loved her purple party and would ask to have more purple party. Whenever she would want cake she asked for purple dots. When she talked about her party we would ask her "Who was at your purple party?" And it just depended on what mood she was in as to who she would say. Each time it could be someone new, but always someone who was at the party. I never could have imagined how much SHE would enjoy and remember her party.